Welcome to vCrib

The Virtual Crib is free Home Automation software that runs on Windows and requires no programming to setup. It has a nice graphical interface and has unique features that high-end security and automation systems do not. vCrib supports many of the most popular home automation protocols and hardware including X10, Insteon, Z-Wave and more. It is highly configurable and easy implement new interfaces to interact with it. The possibilities are endless and best of all it is free!

The Virtual Crib started out of an interest to create a home automation program to fit certain needs as they came along. It was mostly created as a hobby and not a lot of effort was put into the architecture and design to make it more usable by the masses. This has spawned a new project called Open Source Automation. It is a completely new project that uses some of the great ideas from vCrib along with a completely new architecture. The project is open source, includes an API to allow for easy development and a bunch of new features. The creation of this new project means that support and development for vCrib has ended, but progress on OSA is coming along rapidly. Come check it out at www.opensourceautomation.com

As another way to improve communication and accessibility between the developers and new users, we have opened up an IRC channel where users can ask questions and get support. You can find it at #vcrib on irc.freenode.net.

A new video of my bathroom and how to set it up in vCrib has been posted. There are also some previews of new features from 0091 in there. You can find the video in my Demo Videos section, or watch it on Vimeo.com with this link.

vCrib home automation software version 0090 is now in production. Install videos are in the videos section of the site. Version 0080a has been removed and is no longer being supported. If you are running any version besides 0090, please upgrade. Support is available via IM if you have any problems upgrading.

Development work has already begun on the next version. We will see some big changes in how the graphics screens are created and what they can display in the next version. If you have big feature requests, now is the time to post them.

VCrib version 0.0.8.0 has been released! There are a lot of changes in this version. Most notably, the migration of some of the apps to .NET. The Bluetooth and Z-Wave apps are now included in the install as well. All of these .NET apps are included in a zip file that gets installed in the vCrib install directory. Just extract it to that same directory and you should be good to go. As always please post on the forum with any bugs/issues you may come across. You can find the list of changes after the break…